J. Robb - Kindred In Death

She leaned over her unit, studied the images that popped in split screen. Roarke walked to the printouts sliding out its slot.

Young, she thought. Early to mid-twenties by her cop gauge. Caucasian male, with even, attractive, somewhat feminine features. Small, straight nose, full lips, soft eyes, a bit heavy-lidded. The face was oval, almost classically so, and the hair dark, shaggy, trendy.

She studied the image with it, where the features were obscured by the cap and shades. And nodded.

“You gave me good, Yancy.”

“If you’re confident with it, we can send it out.”

“No media. Team members only for now. He’s going to come to the vic’s memorial, odds are. I don’t want to alert him, scare him off. Get this to the other members, with a lock on it. I’m going to start an image search, see if I can ID the bastard.”

“Good luck.”

“You gave me more than luck. This could make the difference. Send it out, Yancy, and go home.”

“You can count on it.”

When Yancy signed off, Eve considered her options, then contacted Jamie.

“Hey, Dallas.”

“You’re going to have an image coming through,” she said without preamble. “Take it and get over to Columbia. I’m going to set it up for you. I want you to start using their imaging program, see if you can get me a match.”

“It’s him.”

“It’s what we’ve got. This is locked, Jamie. Nobody but you, or McNab if you need him. It doesn’t go to any of your e-pals.”

“I get it. I know. I’ll work it, Dallas.”

“I’ll get you cleared. Work good,” she said, then blew out a breath and once again contacted Peach Lapkoff.

“Well, Lieutenant, we’re getting to be best friends.”

“I apologize for interrupting your evening. We have an image, and I’m sending Jamie over to the university, as an expert consultant, civilian, to work with your imaging program.”

“Now?”

“Now. I need you to clear this, Dr. Lapkoff, and to keep it confidential. I can’t afford a leak.”

“I’ll take care of it personally.”

“You’re making my job easier.”

“My grandfather would expect no less.”

“She’s okay,” Eve mumbled as she broke transmission. “So.” She nodded at the images on screen. “There you are, fucker. Now who are you? Computer, initiate search and match, all data on individual in current images, begin with New York City residents.”

Acknowledged. Initiating…

“Auxiliary search, same images, same directive, for match with students listed in File Lapkoff-Columbia-C.”

Acknowledged. Initiating Auxiliary search…

“Could get lucky there, find him on the short list before Jamie’s halfway to Morningside Heights. Okay. Now when I get the data you’re running, I can add that into the mix and-”

He nudged her aside, tapped a quick series of keys. “It’s finished, a few minutes ago. And yes, we did an upgrade on that system the third week in March. You want a third search, with this data, I take it.”

“Affirmative.”

He ordered the task himself. “I’d say it’s time for more coffee, and I should take myself off to the lab to have mine.”

“We may not need-”

“That’s not the point, is it? I’m not going to let that git beat me. Carry on, Lieutenant, and so will I.”

She got her own coffee, then added both sketches to her board. As her computer worked, she circled the board and considered Roarke’s theory. Hacking or ID theft. A boy had to hone his craft, didn’t he? And a younger version of the man on her board might have made a couple of mistakes. Slipped a little as he learned all the ins and outs.

A little smudge on his juvenile record, she mused. We can add that in, yes, we can. We can add that possibility. Maybe back home, wherever the hell home was.

Sticks close to the truth, she recalled. He’d told Deena he’d had a little brush with the law over illegals. Maybe he’d had them with cyber crimes instead.

She let the computer continue its search and sat with her PPC to run criminal, focus on juvenile offenses, with the data she’d accrued from Roarke and Columbia.

It didn’t surprise her to find so many. The cop in her was more surprised when anyone got through life without a smudge or a bump or a bust.

She began the laborious process of scanning, eliminating, separating into possibles. Once again, she lost track of time, and nearly bobbled her third mug of coffee when her ’link signaled.

“Dallas.” Jamie’s face told her what she wanted to hear. “I’ve got him. I think I’ve got him. It’s a ninety-seven-point-three probability match. It’s from five years back, and he only had a semester and a half in but-”

“Send him to me. On screen, now,” she ordered when the transmission hummed.” She stared at the ID photo. “Good work, Jamie. Shut everything down there, wipe the search.”

“It’s him, isn’t it? It’s the bastard who killed Deena.”

She looked into Jamie’s tired and furious eyes. “You did good work,” she repeated. “We’ll brief in the morning. Go home. Get some sleep.”

She knew he wanted to argue, it was clear on his face. But he pulled it in. “Yes, sir.”

She cut transmission then turned back to the screen to study another young, attractive face.

“Hello, Darrin Pauley. You son of a bitch.”

In the lab, Roarke finessed, twisted, prodded. He’d grabbed the amorphous tail of the ghost and was fighting to hold it. “Do you see it?” he demanded.

On a wall screen, Feeney’s eyes were narrowed to slits. “I’ve got eyes, don’t I? You need to recalibrate the bypass, then-”

“I’m bloody well doing that.” Roarke swiveled to another comp, keyed in another code.

“I can box it from here.” On another screen, McNab paced. “If we ride the back end from here-”

“Keep working the enhance,” Feeney snapped. “I’ve got it.”

“Roarke.”

“Not now!” the order shot out at Eve from Roarke, and from the two males on the wall screens.

“Jesus, wall of geek,” she muttered. Then saw the other image, a shadow on shadows.

“You’re pulling him out.”

“We’ve got him, but by our bleeding fingernails. Quiet. If we can’t lock this, we’ll have to do it all again.”

As she watched, the screen began to blur with white dots. She heard McNab say, “No! Damn it, no! It’s another strain. Jesus.”

“Not this time,” Roarke snapped. “The pattern’s there. Reverse the code, every other sequence.”

Eve could see the light sheen of sweat on Feeney’s face, hear the steely determination in Roarke’s voice.

The dots on screen faded.

“We did it!” McNab cried out.

“Not quite yet,” Roarke’s voice eased slightly. “But we bloody well will.”

She didn’t know what they were doing, but the shadow on screen shimmered so she feared it would vanish. Then it steadied, stilled.

“Locked!” McNab called. “We locked the bastard. Rocking-freaking-A.” He leaped up into a victory dance.

“Christ.” Roarke leaned back. “I could use a pint.”

“I’m damn well having one. Good work, every damn one of us,” Feeney said.

“Ah… is that it?” As Eve gestured to the shadow, every eye, on screen or in the room, turned a jaundiced look on her.

“We broke through the virus,” Roarke told her. “We pieced together this image from distorted pixels. We performed a bloody miracle. And no, that’s not it. That’s it for now.”

“We’ll start enhancing, defining, cleaning it up,” Feeney told her, then took a long pull from a bottle of brew. “It’s going to take hours, maybe a day, but it’s there, and we can pull it out. And while we’re doing that, we’ve got the sequence and coding locked down to get the rest of it. We’ll be able to give you the little son of a bitch walking right in the door.”